Born in 1759 in Kirkcubright, Scotland, Robert Lenox arrived
in New York City at the end of the Revolutionary War.In 1783 he married Rachel Carmer and the
couple had six children—only one of which was a son.Lenox amassed a comfortable fortune in the
East India trade and in 1818 paid $6,920 for thirty acres of land far to the
north of the city where wealthy New Yorkers still maintained large summer
estates.Called the Lenox Farm
throughout the 19th century, it would eventually be known as the Lenox
Hill neighborhood of the Upper East Side.

The nearly $7,000 that Lenox paid was a staggering amount and
Lenox knew he had overpaid for the land.But he also predicted the eventual value of the property as the growing
city spread northward.In his will dated
May 23, 1829, he cautioned his son to hold on to the potentially-profitable
land.

“I give, device, and bequeath to my son, my only son, James
Lenox, ‘My Farm at the Five-Mile Stone,’ purchased in part from the Corporation
of the City of New York, and containing about thirty acres, with all its
improvements, stock of horses, cattle, and farming utensils, for and during the
term of his life, and after his death to his heirs forever.My
motive for so leaving this property is a firm persuasion that it may at no
distant day be the site of a village, and as it cost me more than its present
worth, from circumstances known to my family, I like to cherish the belief it
may be realized to them.At all events,
I want the experiment made by keeping the property from being sold.”

Upon his father’s death in 1839, James Lenox became one of
the wealthiest men in the city.At 39
years old, he took over the family business for six years, then retired in 1845
to concentrate on his true love—collecting and studying.

Almost immediately following his father’s death, Lenox began
construction of a pair of impressive mansions at the northeast corner of Fifth
Avenue and 12th Street.Development of Fifth Avenue had begun only a few years earlier when
Henry Brevoort completed his handsome brownstone mansion in 1834.The Lenox mansions would diminish the Brevoort house.

The paired homes stretched 131 feet up the avenue—the width
of at least four normal-sized building lots—and 150 feet along 12th
Street.James would live in the massive
corner house, his sister Henrietta in the significantly smaller—albeit expansive—adjoining
mansion.The brownstone structures were designed in the
currently-popular Gothic Revival style; taking the motif to the point of romantic
crenellation along the roofline.Ornate
Gothic-style iron fencing enclosed the surrounding yards.

Lenox’s influence led to the immediate Fifth Avenue
neighborhood's becoming a family enclave.The
blocks around Henrietta’s and James’ mansions filled with the lavish homes of
the Maitlands, Kennedys and Banks families—all related by marriage to the
Lenoxes.

Before his mansion was completed Lenox had already begun his
collecting.He traveled throughout
Europe amassing a broad variety of books, artwork and artifacts.But he
became increasingly private, filling his house with his collection and
neurotically guarding his treasures against the outside world.In 1845 he began a long-lasting relationship
with Englishman Henry Stevens who would act as Lenox’s book purchasing agent.It was not until 1847 that the two would meet
and Stevens remembered that visit well.

In his 1886 “Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York,”
Stevens told of arriving in New York and sending a message to Lenox that he “would
be glad to see him at any time and place most convenient to himself.”A boy returned with a one-line reply “To-morrow
morning at nine o’clock at my house.”

Stevens’ acquaintances were excited that someone was being
given access to the mansion.“Now we
shall hear and know something of Mr. Lenox, his library, and new house,” they
told him.

“The next morning, on the stroke of nine, I mounted the
broad stone steps and rang the bell.A
maiden servant opened the door on the chain six or eight inches, and asked, ‘Are
you Mr. Stevens?’ ‘Yes.’ 'Mr. Lenox is in his office below; you can enter by
the door under the steps.’Down I went
and again rang a bell, when Mr. Lenox himself unlocked a door and an iron gate
and gave me a warm welcome.”

Stevens was shown the magnificent two-story Gothic library,
the gallery “and a room or two besides the hall, and many closed doors.”Stevens said “I came to the conclusion that
the treasures of his mind, as a matter of habit, like his front door, always ‘had
the chain up.’”

Even after the pair had established a close relationship
Lenox remained detached.On November 25,
1868 he wrote to Stevens offering a 15-minute window in which to meet.

“My Dear Sir,I have
received your letter of the 24th from Ithaca.I will be at home on Friday morning from ¼ past
to ½ past 9.Should the holiday of
tomorrow prevent you getting this note in time, I will be at home at the same
time on Saturday, and if you are not here by ½ past 9 on Friday, I will expect
you on Saturday.Yrs. very truly,J. Lenox”

Henry Stevens was one of the few outsiders to glimpse James
Lenox’s growing collection.Scholars
and bibliophiles tried, but were almost always rebuffed.A distinguished clergyman from Brooklyn had a
strong desire to see the library.He
arrived at the Lenox mansion and passed his card through the cracked door.The Sun reported “He was left standing
outside the door until the aged servant had gone with great deliberation for an
answer, which was in effect: ‘Mr. Lenox don’t know you, has never heard of you,
and you can’t see his library.’”

Another time Chief Justice Daly wished to see a particular
book, of which there was only one copy in the country—in Lenox’s library.He sent a note to Lenox and, as recorded in
The Sun, “The book was sent, but a servant was sent with it, with orders to
wait until the Judge got through with the book, and then to bring it back.”

Lenox’s collection went far beyond his library, which contained
the first copy of a Guttenberg Bible in America, all the known editions of
Milton’s “Areopagitica” and “Paradise Lost,” and first editions of Shakespeare’s
plays.His walls were hung with
uncounted numbers of oil paintings, sketches and etchings.In 1848 Lenox outbid the Congress Library for
George Washington’s Farewell Address.He
paid $2,200 for the manuscript (about $50,000 today) and considered it one of
his greatest treasures.

James Lenox -- NYPL Collection

In the meantime, while Henry Stevens was scouring the world
for rare books and Lenox was amassing an enormous art collection, the
millionaire spent freely on philanthropic causes.A pious Presbyterian, he was famous for his
devout morality and willingness to spread his wealth to worthwhile causes.While he held on to the Lenox Farm as his
father wished, he donated parts of it for the establishment of the Presbyterian
Hospital and the Presbyterian Home for Aged Women.

His charity included the not-so-grand, as well.On June 19, 1865 he sent a letter to Colonel
Vincent Colyer that read, “Dear Sir:I
enclose a check to your order for $250, which you will please apply to the
purchase of ice, fruit, etc., for the returning soldiers.Yours very truly, J. Lenox”

Family members urged him to name the hospital for which he
paid "The Lenox Hospital," but he steadfastly refused.He eschewed notoriety as passionately as some
millionaires sought it.And although he
gained the reputation of a recluse, he was social among his small circle of
intimate friends, most of whom were relatives.

On January 24, 1870 the New-York Tribune wrote “For many
years past, scholars have known of the existence in this city of a private
library and gallery of marvelous value, comprising collections of unequaled
importance in several departments of literature, and containing treasures of
art whose worth could not be computed by dollars, or compared with any that
existed elsewhere in the country…As [Lenox] possessed the habits of a
recluse with the tastes of a scholar, there were but few even of his more
intimate acquaintances in scholarship who ever had had anything like a full
comprehension of the value of his collections, and it is doubtful whether
anybody but himself could make a catalogue of his library, or give a statement
of his treasures…During the long period of their collection, the owner has
guarded them with a jealousy and rigor which have effectually discouraged all
attempts of outsiders to enter the sacred precincts.”

But now, the newspaper announced, James Lenox had decided to
make a “gift to the people of this city.”The collection had successfully overwhelmed the Fifth Avenue
mansion and now, Lenox felt, was the time to make it public.He donated Lenox Farm land, the blockfront on
Fifth Avenue from 70th to 71st Street for a library, along with $300,000—two-thirds
of which was to be spent on erecting the building and the remainder to defray
the expense of maintaining and operating the library.

The Lenox Library, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, was as
much museum as library; housing Assyrian antiquities and paintings by
Constable, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Turner and Raeburn alongside American works
by Frederick Church, Cole, Morse, Copley and Inman.

On February 17, 1880 James Lenox died in the brownstone
mansion on Fifth Avenue.The Sun
reported that "He was in excellent health up to the last two months of his
life.From that time he began to succumb
to the infirmities of age.His death was
peaceful and painless.”

The private man in life remained private in death.“He shrank so much from notoriety that he
left rigid instructions to his relatives and friends to withhold all information
of his life from publication.This wish
was thoroughly respected, so that applications made last evening to his relatives,
his pastor, Dr. Paxton; his physician, Dr. W. H. Draper; his former associate,
Royal Phelps, and others who knew him intimately, elicited the universal reply,
‘Mr. Lenox shunned publicity, and he has sealed our lips.’”

photograph "Old Buildlings of New York City," 1907 (copyright expired)

The funeral took place in the mansion at noon on February 21
during a raging snowstorm.The New York Times
reported “The last request of the late James Lenox—that his funeral should be
strictly private, attended only by his relatives and most intimate friends—was so
carefully respected that less than a score and a half of persons were gathered
in the plain, old-fashioned brown-stone dwelling at Fifth-avenue and
Twelfth-street.”Only two of the mourners,
his doctor and his pastor, were not relatives.

There were no flowers in the house and the simple mahogany
casket was ornamented only with a silver plate inscribed “James Lenox. Born 19
August, 1800.Died 17 February, 1880.”

The funeral party followed the coffin from the house at 1:00.The Tribune noted “The funeral procession, in
which there were only eight carriages, attracted little notice as it slowly
moved in ablinding snow-storm through
Twelfth-st. to Second-ave. and thence to the Marble Cemetery, in Second-st.,
where the remains were placed in the family vault, No. 124, the table of which
is inscribed with the name of Robert Lenox.The storm still raged as the little party of twelve gentlemen and five
ladies stood gathered around the vault when Dr. Paxton pronounced the
benediction.”

The bachelor millionaire left nearly his entire estate to his
unmarried sister Henrietta.By the time
of his death he had donated over $3 million to charitable causes.His massive mansion would sit vacant until
Henrietta’s death six years later on July 6, 1886.Her immense estate, valued at around $10
million, was divided among the many relatives.

The Lenox mansion became the property of the Presbyterian
church and became known as the Presbyterian House.It was here in December 1888 that a conference between Northern and
Southern Presbyterians was held in an attempt to bring “about co-operation and
possibly an organic union.”

Before long the house was used for the church’s missionary
offices.Called Mission House, various
committees and groups used its rooms.In
July 1892 scores of visiting members of the Presbyterian Christian Endeavorers
visited the facilities.The Times
reported that “they filled the sidewalk on the east side of Fifth Avenue from
Madison Square to Twelfth Street…The representatives of the two boards took
charge of the visitors and showed them the building and all that it
contained.There was the library, with
all its curios, maps, and attractive objects picked up by observant Presbyterian
missionaries in all parts of the world, and here placed to make a really
valuable museum.”

In 1894, after receiving a large bequest from a wealthy
church member, the Presbyterian Church erected the large Presbyterian Building
at No. 156 Fifth Avenue.The former
Lenox mansion was now somewhat of a white elephant.After three years of arguing, the General
Assembly decided to sell the house in 1897.

“When the Lenox mansion, at 53 Fifth Avenue, was sold there
were fears that this fine type of the spacious old-time New York residence
would be torn down to make way for a modern structure,” said The New York
Times.But it was purchased by nearby
Fifth Avenue resident Thomas Fortune Ryan for the expressed purpose of
preserving the neighborhood.

The house with its nearly twenty rooms had old Italian
marble fireplaces, spacious entry hall and staircase and frescoed
ceilings.But it was in a serious state
of disrepair by 1905 when the newly-formed Institute of Musical Art moved
in.It cost the school $11,000 in
repairs.

The new organization which would eventually become the
Julliard School attracted promising musicians from around the nation.32-year old John G. McFadden came here in
November 1906 from Oberlin, Ohio, where he had worked his way through college,
focusing on vocal music.He entered a
class taught by Prof. W. Klamroth and showed great talent; but suddenly
developed a catarrhal infection that threatened his prospects of becoming a
singer.

Klamroth sent him to Dr. Percy E. D. Malcolm, who saw the
young man once a month.McFadden refused
to become a charity case so he scrimped on food in order to save money for his
doctor bills.“He had grown thinner and
thinner, his hair had turned to a grizzly gray, and Dr. Malcolm warned him more
than once that he was not nurturing his body properly,” reported The New York
Times.

The doctor found the singer “on the verge of collapse in a
chair in his office” in April 1907 and sent him to the New York Hospital where
he died.The Times ran the headline “Young
Musician Starves” and wrote “The poorly nurtured body could not stand the
strain and early yesterday he succumbed.He had been eating, it is said, in the cheapest restaurants, with great
infrequency, and depending on the scanty meals that he had in his cold hall
bedroom.”

The Institute rented space to other organizations, the U.S.
Aeronautical Reserve and the Washington Square Association among them.Then in 1910 it laid the cornerstone for a
new, modern facility uptown.

With the school gone Thomas Ryan gave up.“Mr. Ryan paid about $385,000 for the
property,” said The Times on April 2, 1911, “and he bought other property in
the neighborhood in an effort to prevent the encroachments of business.A little over a year ago Mr. Ryan felt that lower
Fifth Avenue was doomed to become a commercial section, and he bought his new
Fifth Avenue house, adjoining George Gould’s home at Sixty-seventh Street.

“On the site of the old Lenox mansion will be erected an
eighteen-story business structure costing more than $1,500,000.”

photograph taken by the author

The modern office building, designed by Maynicke &
Franke, survives today and its footprint reveals the massive scale of the Lenox
mansions that dominated the corner.

Good to learn more about Lenox. Until now all I knew of him was based on this anecdote (from Stephen Birmingham's Our Crowd):August Belmont's art gallery was the first in the city to be lighted from askylight in the roof, and the collection of art it housed was remarkable,including works by Madrazo, Rosa Bonheur, Meissonier, Vibert, and-trulyscandalous-an assortment of voluptuous and oversize nudes by Bouguereau.Most scandalized by the last was an Old Guard New Yorker named JamesLenox, who lived directly across the street from the Belmonts. Leaning ofMr. Lenox's objections to the Bouguereaus, Belmont defiantly hung thelargest and most explicit of the nudes just inside his front door so thatit would be in full view of the Lenox front windows every time the Belmontfront door was opened, which, in light of the amount of entertainingBelmont did, was often. Mr. Lenox would become almost apoplectic at themention of the Belmont name, and according to Lucius Beebe, when Lenox wastold that Belmont spent twenty thousand dollars a month on wines alone,Lenox collapsed of a heart attack and died.